Murder in Amsterdam is a fascinating book that is also maddening in at least two ways. The content and approach are intentionally maddening; the writing style is unintentionally maddening (at least, I hope it's unintentional).
Author Ian Buruma gives fair warning of the intentionally maddening aspects in the book's subtitle—The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance. Provocateur and filmmaker Theo van Gogh (great-grandnephew of Vincent) was publicly and brutally murdered on November 2, 2004, by an angry young Muslim named Mohammed Bouyeri. "Angry young Muslim" is becoming a cliche in the news, and Buruma does nothing to encourage us to think differently, although he does begin to differentiate among various types and nationalities of Muslims. He characterizes assassin Bouyeri as "an increasingly disturbed young man whose conversion to jihadism . . . had begun by rejecting 'Western values" (p. 193). Nothing new there. By the end of the book, if you aren't angry at young Muslims, then you weren't paying attention. Buruma repeatedly hammers home the violence, the intolerance, and the utter rejection of democracy practised by these angry young Muslims. But he also encourages us to be angry at the complacent Dutch people who "allowed" their national situation to degenerate to the point where the murder was possible. He describes a long national history of ambivalent? hypocritical? burghers who associate in "pillars" of "Our Own Kind" while priding themselves on their tolerant culture.
The most fascinating part of the book is the questions that Buruma dares to suggest; questions which our polite, tolerant, multi-cultural society seldom allows us to even think. How far should tolerance extend? Must we (should we?) be tolerant of those who do not wish to tolerate even our existence? Do immigrants have a responsibility to assimilate at least as far as allowing the basic tenets of their society (e.g., democracy and tolerance)? If people who believe and actively (violently) promote theocratic government move to a democratic society, are they immigrants or terrorists? Maddening questions, indeed.
The unintentionally maddening element in this book is the writing style. To me, it reads as though it were a collection of blogs or, perhaps, newspaper columns (Buruma is a journalist.) Fair enough, if it were published as such. But the presentation is that of a novel or at least a coherent "book," and interviews with Buruma give no hint that these are recycled materials. Meanwhile Buruma gleefully leaps about among news articles, expert testimony, his childhood experiences.... Worst of all, he seldom introduces his "characters" clearly, and so we are left to read long passages that we think are about one person (Bouyeri, most often) only to discover that they are about someone else entirely. A good editor, a few transitions, and a little context would have improved the reading experience greatly. And I don't think it would dilute the intentional provocation of anger one bit.
2.07.2007
11.12.2006
Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go
The art of the beginning has gone out of fashion in literary fiction. No more action-packed opening scenes; very few great opening lines. The classic approach of opening in medias res—in the middle of things, in the heart of the story—has been relegated to the thriller and to movies. It is now typical to assume readers will persevere for some 100 pages before getting to the meat of the novel. That may be acceptable in 800-page books such as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but in a slim volume like Kazuo Ishiguruo's 288-page Never Let Me Go, it makes a large assumption about the depth of the reader's commitment. Perhaps Ishiguruo's Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day entitles him to such a commitment; on the other hand, we all know about assumptions...
Fortunately, once it hits its stride in part 2 (page 115), Never Let Me Go is an engrossing novelistic discussion of ethical concerns in biology and child-rearing. It's not a bad story, either, and it also has some interesting characters. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are intriguing protagonists even as children at Hailsham, their curiously off-tone boarding school. Of course, there's a reason that Hailsham is so peculiar; that mystery lies at the heart of the tale. I urge you to avoid those reviews that explain the peculiarity from the outset. Yes, the "mystery" is fairly easy to guess, but knowing it in advance somewhat spoiled the book for me. I will say that the secret has overtones of science-fiction, prompting comparisons to Brave New World and 1984. But it also echoes those classic dystopian novels in that it does not handle the story as science fiction tropes. The matter-of-fact tone is what sets this novel apart.
And that tone really comes into its own in the second half of the book, when Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are embarking on their adulthood. For the secret that governs their lives is a chilling one, and treating it as a fact on a par with the sun rising in the east perversely invites us to question all of the assumptions of this world and, by extension, of our own. This questioning is, I believe, the motive behind the book. The tale is just a vehicle for the discussion; the novel a camouflage for the questions that Ishiguruo wants to pose.
Fortunately, once it hits its stride in part 2 (page 115), Never Let Me Go is an engrossing novelistic discussion of ethical concerns in biology and child-rearing. It's not a bad story, either, and it also has some interesting characters. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are intriguing protagonists even as children at Hailsham, their curiously off-tone boarding school. Of course, there's a reason that Hailsham is so peculiar; that mystery lies at the heart of the tale. I urge you to avoid those reviews that explain the peculiarity from the outset. Yes, the "mystery" is fairly easy to guess, but knowing it in advance somewhat spoiled the book for me. I will say that the secret has overtones of science-fiction, prompting comparisons to Brave New World and 1984. But it also echoes those classic dystopian novels in that it does not handle the story as science fiction tropes. The matter-of-fact tone is what sets this novel apart.
And that tone really comes into its own in the second half of the book, when Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are embarking on their adulthood. For the secret that governs their lives is a chilling one, and treating it as a fact on a par with the sun rising in the east perversely invites us to question all of the assumptions of this world and, by extension, of our own. This questioning is, I believe, the motive behind the book. The tale is just a vehicle for the discussion; the novel a camouflage for the questions that Ishiguruo wants to pose.
11.03.2006
Kage Baker's Company Novels
Kage Baker's Company novels are my latest bibliographic obsession. Rich, complex stories; a large cast of immortal cyborgs with personalities diverse enough to suit most every taste; a centuries-long plot which may (or may not) be master-minded by a shadowy, sinister Company of mortals who created the cyborgs; detailed settings from 500,000 BCE jungles to 24th century London, with myriad visits to San Francisco throughout the ages—what's not to like?
The basic conceit behind the series—a 24th century Company acquires the secrets of time travel and immortality—comes with a catch. Humans can time travel only to the past; they can then travel forward to their starting time, but no further into the future. In order to turn a profit from the time travel trick (they ARE a Company, after all), the Company "rescues" orphans in the dim past and transforms them into immortal cyborgs. The cyborgs, indoctrinated to believe they are serving humanity, save valuable art works and soon-to-be-extinct plants and animals in the past. (With the keen eye of hindsight and a good set of history books called the Temporal Concordance, the Company knows exactly when and where to find the lost artifacts.) The plunder is sent to the future, where the Company sells the art to private collectors and patents the cures harvested from the biological materials.
In addition to the standalone stories within each book, two long-term plots run through the series: power and romance. The romance centers on the immortal Mendoza and her mortal lover(s). The power trip comes from the struggle between the Company, the more ambitious cyborgs who want to overthrow their mortal masters, and the lower-echelon cyborgs who just want to get along and do good, where possible. Everything is complicated by the fact that the Temporal Concordance stops dead in the year 2355, when The Silence falls, and no one knows what happens next.
The series also poses philosophical questions. Would you really want to live forever? What would happen to love and marriage in such a situation? If you rescue the Library of Alexandria from the fires of the barbarian hordes, is it reasonable to expect to return a profit? Under which (if any) circumstances do you owe someone your life?
My addiction to the series began last fall while browsing through Borderlands Books kvetching about the lack of a new Connie Willis novel. The ever-knowledgeable Jude suggested Kage Baker instead and I bought In the Garden of Iden, the first novel in the Company series. I was intrigued by its premises, but I wasn't really hooked until I skipped to book 4, The Graveyard Game (books 2 and 3 are difficult-to-impossible to find).
I would actually recommend that new readers begin with The Graveyard Game, then return to In the Garden of Iden if they want to backfill the plot. The first three books in the series primarily focus on Mendoza, her struggles with becoming an immortal and with her love for a mortal man. Unfortunately, Mendoza is a royal pain, and I was never able to identify with her, so I was not able to enjoy her romantic tribulations; of course, your experience may vary.
Starting in The Graveyard Game (book 4), Baker concentrates on the larger issues and the long-term struggles; she also brings to the fore her male characters who, oddly enough, she handles better than her female heroine. The immortals Joseph and Lewis are believable and likeable; their drunken spree at Ghiradelli Square (chocolate intoxicates the immortals) should be on the list of best all-time comic scenes. And soon we meet the fascinating Alec Checkerfield, pirate rogue and seventh Earl of Finsbury in a thoroughly decadent future. By the time Mendoza reappears and reunites with at least some of the other characters in book 7, The Machine's Child, she's had a much needed personality makeover.
Fortunately for me and all Company readers, the eighth and final book in the series (which will *finally* solve the mystery of The Silence that falls in 2355) is due out in January 2007. When the author spoke at Borderlands this October, she wouldn't give away any secrets about the denouement. But she did say she believes good should be rewarded and evil punished—and that she believe Lewis, my favorite character (who is "currently" in terrible peril) is a good man.
The basic conceit behind the series—a 24th century Company acquires the secrets of time travel and immortality—comes with a catch. Humans can time travel only to the past; they can then travel forward to their starting time, but no further into the future. In order to turn a profit from the time travel trick (they ARE a Company, after all), the Company "rescues" orphans in the dim past and transforms them into immortal cyborgs. The cyborgs, indoctrinated to believe they are serving humanity, save valuable art works and soon-to-be-extinct plants and animals in the past. (With the keen eye of hindsight and a good set of history books called the Temporal Concordance, the Company knows exactly when and where to find the lost artifacts.) The plunder is sent to the future, where the Company sells the art to private collectors and patents the cures harvested from the biological materials.
In addition to the standalone stories within each book, two long-term plots run through the series: power and romance. The romance centers on the immortal Mendoza and her mortal lover(s). The power trip comes from the struggle between the Company, the more ambitious cyborgs who want to overthrow their mortal masters, and the lower-echelon cyborgs who just want to get along and do good, where possible. Everything is complicated by the fact that the Temporal Concordance stops dead in the year 2355, when The Silence falls, and no one knows what happens next.
The series also poses philosophical questions. Would you really want to live forever? What would happen to love and marriage in such a situation? If you rescue the Library of Alexandria from the fires of the barbarian hordes, is it reasonable to expect to return a profit? Under which (if any) circumstances do you owe someone your life?
My addiction to the series began last fall while browsing through Borderlands Books kvetching about the lack of a new Connie Willis novel. The ever-knowledgeable Jude suggested Kage Baker instead and I bought In the Garden of Iden, the first novel in the Company series. I was intrigued by its premises, but I wasn't really hooked until I skipped to book 4, The Graveyard Game (books 2 and 3 are difficult-to-impossible to find).
I would actually recommend that new readers begin with The Graveyard Game, then return to In the Garden of Iden if they want to backfill the plot. The first three books in the series primarily focus on Mendoza, her struggles with becoming an immortal and with her love for a mortal man. Unfortunately, Mendoza is a royal pain, and I was never able to identify with her, so I was not able to enjoy her romantic tribulations; of course, your experience may vary.
Starting in The Graveyard Game (book 4), Baker concentrates on the larger issues and the long-term struggles; she also brings to the fore her male characters who, oddly enough, she handles better than her female heroine. The immortals Joseph and Lewis are believable and likeable; their drunken spree at Ghiradelli Square (chocolate intoxicates the immortals) should be on the list of best all-time comic scenes. And soon we meet the fascinating Alec Checkerfield, pirate rogue and seventh Earl of Finsbury in a thoroughly decadent future. By the time Mendoza reappears and reunites with at least some of the other characters in book 7, The Machine's Child, she's had a much needed personality makeover.
Fortunately for me and all Company readers, the eighth and final book in the series (which will *finally* solve the mystery of The Silence that falls in 2355) is due out in January 2007. When the author spoke at Borderlands this October, she wouldn't give away any secrets about the denouement. But she did say she believes good should be rewarded and evil punished—and that she believe Lewis, my favorite character (who is "currently" in terrible peril) is a good man.
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